So anyway, the schedule for HEAT. It’s kind of a good news/bad news thing. The good news? I’ve had a comic project greenlighted by a publisher, which is awesome and very exciting. The bad news? I have to, y’know, draw it, so I’m going to have to take some of that drawing time away from HEAT pages. So what this means for you guys is that I’ll unfortunately have to reduce the schedule to once a week. So until further notice, HEAT will be updating once weekly on Saturdays, starting this Saturday, January 14th.

I have watched a whooole lotta live wrestling in since the last update, readers. On Saturday I was in Morinville with FORCE Pro Wrestling’s inaugural card, which turned out very well, then on Monday I was in attendance for WWE RAW in Edmonton. CM Punk and John Cena main eventing RAW may have been great on TV, but live it was fucking mind-blowing. I can only imagine what it would have been like to be in the crowd for their matches at Money In The Bank or SummerSlam. I was also surprised how poorly the crowd noise translated from the arena to television.

Simple moves that are difficult to draw part ten thousand: suplexes. The landing was a lot more difficult than the lifting part. But we’re finally back to the second round of the Super Max Challenge, in which Vinny LaGrazo and Rod Black are taking on Wildman Harris and “Pretty Boy” Paul Meyers.

On Saturday: Rod Black tags in and attempts to put the “Pretty Boy” away.

The internet wrestling community spends most of its time complaining. I have been known to indulge in my share of that complaining, because really, other people doing things that are terrible is a fun area to mine for comedy. On the other hand, people who buy/watch/whatever a product just to complain about it annoy the crap out of me, which resulted in thinking about finding positives. So here are some decidedly terrible aspects of wrestling today that I’ve dug around to find the positives of.

Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler’s Neverending Feud
Why People Complain: Jerry “The King” Lawler, while undeniably a legend of wrestling, is 61 years old. Michael Cole is not a trained wrestler, and also does his best every week to make WWE television unwatchable. Their feud has gotten at least 15 minutes on RAW for MONTHS now, pissing away time that could be used to build up young wrestlers or at least establish an actual midcard on the WWE’s flagship show.It Could Be Worse: On last night’s (Monday, May 16th) episode of RAW, Jerry Lawler put over Jack Swagger as a former champion with high-level skill being held back by Cole’s douchebaggery. Swagger might come out of this feud as the big winner, with renewed relevance. Also, Cole’s singlet allows us to see his hilariously awful tattoos while not having to see much else of his “physique.” Could you imagine having to watch him parade around in the traditional speedo-style trunks? I would have bleached my optical nerves by now.

Christian is World Heavyweight Champion… for Five DaysWhy People Complain: After carrying TNA’s main event scene as the NWA World Heavyweight Champion and 17 years of putting on consistently high-quality matches, Christian finally won the big one in the big leagues, with his best friend at ringside. Internet fangasms galore at the thought of Christian getting a run at the top of the card. Then the spoilers come out and it’s revealed that Christian loses the belt to Randy Orton in his first title defence. Fans go berserk.It Could Be Worse: Christian and Orton had a very good match, then followed it up with an excellent tag team contest against Sheamus and Mark Henry. While Orton is boring as fuck, he’s decent enough in the ring that a guy like Christian (or CM Punk in recent months) can drag good matches out of him, and Christian will be able to carry the feud on the mic while Orton stares intently at nothing while trying to remember what he’s supposed to say next. The feud also means that Christian might regain the WHC at some point down the road. And, above all else, at least Randy Orton and John Cena have been separated so we don’t have to see them main event the other 17 or so PPVs WWE will be putting on this year.

TNA Becomes Impact Wrestling, No Other Changes Are MadeWhy People Complain: TNA’s roster features a strong base of young, talented wrestlers capable of amazing feats of athleticism and top-shelf matches. Under the Hogan/Bischoff regime (and before that, but especially so now), these guys have been swept aside in favour of twenty minute promos that accomplish nothing but to set up medicore-at-best matches with screwy finishes featuring a revolving door of past-their-expiration-date former stars and WWE cast-offs. AJ Styles? Feuding with Tommy Dreamer. Samoa Joe? Not even on pay-per-view. Oh, and their Heavyweight Champion was a raging drug addict who showed up to work a match while nearly comatose. On pay-per-view.It Could Be Worse: While Vince Russo being in charge of creative and Hogan and Bischoff turning TNA into the clusterfuck that killed WCW seems like as bad as it can get, it could be worse. Vince Russo could be on TV and integral to storylines. While most people have blocked it from their memory, he used to have long promo segments, often involving building a mostly pointless faction that includes half of the roster. Now, to be fair, that’s basically what Immortal was, except with Hogan and Bischoff at the head, but I contend that those two knuckleheads are marginally more desireable than listening to Vince Russo spout wrestling insider terms laced with the attitude that he’s the edgiest motherfucker on the planet and that worked shoots are the pinnacle of storytelling. And the best news is that whoever is pumping money into this disaster of a company will decide to pull the plug, allowing the young talent to either move on to the WWE or hit the North American indy scene with a much healthier bank account and be made to look like the stars they are in Ring of Honor or somewhere.

On the heels of his podcast with David Lagana at I Want Wrestling, MVP sat down with the folks from Puroresu Spirit for another really interesting interview. Low Ki also appears for a little bit in the middle. In non-MVP news, HEAT is back on Wednesday with Johnny Law vs. Pretty Boy Paul Meyers.

If you follow anybody in the wrestling community on Twitter, you’ve probably seen about a billion links to this already. If you haven’t, now you have.

The gist of it is that Dave Lagana, former head writer on WWE Smackdown and ECW, did a 90 minute interview with former WWE talent and current New Japan Pro Wrestling grappler MVP. Now, when he was in WWE I didn’t particularly care about MVP, as when I started watching regularly again he was already in the phase of his tenure where he was only on TV sporadically and, when he was on TV, didn’t really do anything. I remember watching him in Deep South Wrestling, which used to be on televised in Canada on The Fight Network and enjoying his schtick, which really popped when compared to the rest of the roster. I believe their Heavyweight Champion (and one half of the tag team champions with Mike Knox, who I assume is now homeless and eating alley cats) was named Blandy McBlanderson. Which is entirely beside the point, which is that this interview is fascinating. Most former WWE stars tend to be either overwhelmingly negative about the ‘E because they hold a grudge, or are tight-lipped because they don’t want to hurt their chances of making it back. MVP’s interview is a rarity in that he’s fairly even-handed, acknowledging that, like anywhere else, there are pros (the wellness policy mostly eliminating the pill-popping culture of pro wrestling) and cons (the developmental system is kind of a clusterfuck). This interview actually makes me want to go find some of MVP’s current NJPW stuff, because unlike a lot of the WWE developmental guys, he knows his shit.

Pro Wrestling Ponderings takes its first foray into indy wrestling in the Great White North with this review of the Prairie Wrestling Alliance’s 10th Anniversary Show. I would imagine that most of you aren’t particularly familiar with the PWA, which can be remedied with the help of our friends over at Slam! Wrestling. Particularly noteworthy is the list of PWA wrestlers who have gone on to be signed by the WWE in the last few years.

20 MAN INVITATIONAL BATTLE ROYAL

The winner of this one earns a shot at a PWA title of their choosing during 2011. There was an odd quasi-Royal Rumble element to it which saw the first ten men enter at the beginning of the match and the next ten enter five minutes later. That was kind of weird, but otherwise this was pretty much a standard battle royal. Superfly Dan Myers, who I haven’t seen much of since his former tag team partner Matthias Wild was signed by WWE (he’s currently in FCW wrestling under the name Mike Dalton), won the match at around the 12 minute mark, shortly after the ring announcer erroneously announced him as having been eliminated. Myers had been knocked through the ropes, then returned to eliminate the final man in the ring as he celebrated his apparent victory. The roster for the battle royal featured some regular PWA wrestlers, including Myers, King Dusty Adonis, Deryck Crosse, Stryfe, and Nightmare #2, as well several guys I didn’t recognize. I’m pretty sure Big Jess Youngblood and I played peewee football together. That has nothing to do with the match, other than the fact that he was in it.

Pete Williams was originally billed to be Evan Adams’ partner for this match; not really sure what necessitated the change. I hadn’t seen Adams before, but after watching this match I’m definitely looking forward to see him in action again. Sharp and Crue came out first and got some cheap heat by tearing up an Edmonton Oilers flag, then humping the shreds. Unfortunately, Dr. Kyoto didn’t get a promo this time. In the past year, Dr. Kyoto has gone from being nearly pointless to absolutely hilarious, all because he got on the mic and started yelling animatedly in Japanese (or Japanese-sounding gibberish).

Eclipse and Evan Adams celebrate their Tag Team Championship victory as referee Vijay Shankhar goes to get the belts.

Eclipse got a pretty good reaction, although I find him a bit disappointing. If he insists on dressing like a luchador, I expect him to do some luchador shit. Y’know, ten thousand arm drags per match, lots of stuff utilizing the ropes, and a dive to the floor or two. Based on what I’ve seen from Adams and Eclipse, Adams – the one who doesn’t dress like he came straight from a CMLL show – is the far superior flyer, whereas Eclipse wrestles what is essentially a North American style.

The match started off as a back-and-forth affair with the heel team of Sharp and Crue gaining brief advantages before being countered. The roof in the PWA’s usual venue, the Century Casino Showroom, is pretty low, so a lot of high flyers are limited in what they can pull off without splattering their brains on a support beam. This wasn’t the case in the NAIT gym, and we got an early look at some aerial skills when Evan Adams hit a moonsault from the top rope to the floor on the champs. Eclipse would later climb the turnbuckle, raising my hopes that he would do something awe-inspiring… then he proceeded to pretty much just step off the ropes into a “flying” body press instead of jumping. After several minutes of the heels isolating and working over Eclipse, Evan Adams crotched both of the champs as they attempted to set up some sort of double superplex. Eclipse got the hot tag to Adams and they hit some big double team moves. Eventually Scotley Crue got tossed out of the ring, which allowed Evan Adams to hit a breathtaking corkscrew elbow drop from the top rope on Bobby Sharp. Eclipse blocked Scotley from re-entering the ring as the referee counted to three.

Winners and new PWA Canadian Tag Team Champions, Eclipse and Evan Adams at around 14 minutes. There wasn’t really any build-up to the title change, but the match was exciting enough and the finish impressive enough that I’m okay with that.

PWA Cruiserweight Championship MatchCam-ikaze (c) vs. Andrew Hawkes

I mentioned earlier that the low ceiling in the Century Casino handicaps some of the flyers from performing at their best. This match is proof of that, as these two guys put on the best match I’ve seen out of either of them.

Andrew Hawkes’ gimmick is that he’s from Newfoundland, which to Canadians is self-explanatory. For the majority of you non-Canadians, Newfies are stereotyped as friendly, hard-drinking, and their dialect of English is almost completely incomprehensible to non-Newfies. Cam-ikaze used to wear a Japanese-style mask, but he lost it to Alex Plexis in a mask vs. Cruiserweight Championship match a few months ago. Now he dyes his tongue green, which makes him look like he sucked off a goblin just before he came out to wrestle. He needs his mask back is my point.

Cam-ikaze and Andrew Hawkes stopped moving long enough for me to take this picture.

The bout started off with an extended Roman knuckle lock spot that featured some really nice bridge-work and some smooth transitions, eventually resulting in a standoff. A botched springboard toward the end of the sequence killed some of its steam, but Cam and Hawkes didn’t let it get to them and went into a sequence of various styles of arm drags before another standoff. After a while, Cam-ikaze countered a whip to the corner with a headstand. Hawkes, in the first of several actions hinting at a heel turn, shoved Cam out to the floor, then ripped off the top turnbuckle cover (which wouldn’t actually matter for several more minutes). He then took advantage of the much higher ceiling clearance to hit a corkscrew to the floor. A little bit later Cam-ikaze hit a moonsault to the floor, which nearly caused some harm to a very stupid fan who decided that he should take that opportunity to bolt from where he was kneeling at ringside to take pictures. Now, had he been right next to where Cam was going to land, that would have made sense… but he bolted TOWARDS the obvious impact point. And that’s why there should have been guard rails.

After several spots in which Hawkes seemed tempted to cheat to gain the advantage, including being about to ram Cam’s head into the exposed turnbuckle but choosing instead to throw him into another corner, we arrived at the finishing sequence. With Hawkes down, Cam mounted the top turnbuckle and got some great air on a shooting star press, only to be met with a faceful of canvas. Hawkes ascended the ropes for a shooting star of his own but was met with a similar result. After a few punches, both grapplers founds themselves standing on the top rope with Hawkes going for what seemed like a Rock Bottom from the top… until Cam swatted Hawkes’ arm away and hit a standing hurricanrana off the top rope. The impact sounded like a bomb going off. Cam got the three count just shy of the 15 minute mark.

After the match, Cam shook Hawkes’ hand and prompted the crowd to cheer for his effort, but got a double axe-handle to the back for his trouble. Hawkes hit the champ with a brainbuster to a shower of boos, completing the heel turn that he’d been hinting throughout the match.

K.C. Spinelli & Valkyrie vs. Veronika Vice & Tenille Tayla

Prior to this match, I headed over to the concession stand to grab some water and snacks, which is normally not worth noting. In this case, however, a situation unique to indy wrestling occurred when I realized that Superfly Dan Myers, changed into street clothes, was waiting in line behind me.

On to the match. I didn’t have high hopes for this one, especially since half of the participants in this bout (K.C. Spinelli and Tenille Tayla) were involved in a stinker back in November at Regeneration. I was very pleasantly surprised, as this turned out to be the best women’s match I’ve ever seen in PWA, and the best women’s match I’ve seen anywhere that isn’t SHIMMER in quite a while. Things started off with the heel team of Veronika Vice and Tenille Tayla being frustrated by Spinelli and Valkyrie, including a spot in which Valkyrie executed what can only be described as a crotch-drop to the arm. Once the heel team managed to isolate K.C. Spinelli they dominated the match, but their frustration at not being able to keep Spinelli down for the three count allowed Spinelli to tag out. Spinelli and Veronika Vice started brawling on the floor while Tayla tried to hit a cross body block on Valkyrie, which was countered into a swinging Rock Bottom for the victory at about the 12 minute mark.

Ross Hart comes out and the crowd goes apeshit. I’m not sure people quite understand how big of a deal the Hart family is in Alberta, but Stampede Wrestling was that important to both wrestling in Alberta and wrestling in general. Before Stu Hart sold the promotion to Vince McMahon in the late 1980s, Stampede Wrestling was the premiere destination for talent that wanted to make it big. Seriously, look at the WWF roster in the late ‘80s. Most of those guys went through Stampede at some point before that. Oh, right, Ross Hart. Yeah, he pretty much just said that the fans were awesome and keeping wrestling alive in Alberta, then left after about 30 seconds. The Harts have never been known for their mic skills.

Ravenous Randy prepares to do bad things to T-Bone Jack Sloan. Also, a ladder is involved.

A few months ago, T-Bone lost a match in Calgary that stipulated that he had to wear a clown suit until he won a match. While the set-up for his ladder match was T-Bone’s rage over his humiliating attire, he apparently won his match in Calgary last weekend and got to take off the suit, which was a little disappointing. Ravenous Randy came out to his usual obnoxiously over-mixed theme song, a mash-up of the Two and a Half Men theme song, Steven Regal’s old “Real Man’s Man” theme, Salt ‘n’ Pepa’s “Mighty Good Man,” and another song about manliness that I don’t know the name of.

My common knock on Ravenous Randy has been that I’ve never really seen him get in any significant offence. Well I can’t make that complaint anymore, because this time he actually got to do stuff in addition to his usual crowd-interaction antics.

T-Bone climbs up to capture the Mayhem Title while Ravenous Randy watches helplessly.

I’d never seen a live ladder match before, and man are they more brutal in person. The wet meat sound of a body hitting the metal ladder is slightly disturbing, and there was plenty of that sound in this one. None of the ladder spots were particularly innovative, but they were well-incorporated into the psychology of the match and cringe-inducing (in a good way). T-Bone worked on Randy’s knee quite a bit, including ramming it into the ladder and eliciting either an amazing sell-job or some legitimate and fairly serious pain. Randy was still limping pretty heavily an hour or so later when he snuck up to the bleachers to visit with some friends, so I’m thinking it was the latter. It didn’t stop him from doing a flip off the top rope onto T-Bone, who was laid out on a ladder supported by the ropes and a chair, though.

After battering each other for over 15 minutes, T-Bone grabbed a rope from under the ring and mugged Randy from behind as he attempted to climb the ladder. Randy’s leg got stuck in the rungs of the ladder, which T-Bone proceeded to take advantage of by tying Randy’s ankle to the bottom rung on the opposite side of the ladder. Once Randy was immobilized, T-Bone was free to scale the ladder and capture the Mayhem Title at around the 17 minute mark.

The “future” part of the billing of this match led me to believe there’d be a wrestling fetus or something. This was a good way to showcase the breadth of the PWAs roster, though, as it featured several veterans from the early days of the PWA, such as the Durango brothers, Tex Gaines, M (formerly Marky Mark) and Jason Anderson (the first PWA Heavyweight Champion). This match was the 10th Anniversary Show’s nod to PWA stipulations that don’t make until after the match is over. In this case, the referee had the power to disqualify any wrestler without the match ending, which most of the audience (or at least the ones within my earshot) interpreted as it being an elimination match. As it turned out, it actually meant that the referee could just kick guys out if they gave him a hassle so he could keep things under control, but it was only a one fall match.

Brady Roberts works over M in a match featuring more guys than I could fit into the shot.

10 man tag team matches without elimination rules are a little odd, because they lack the escalation of tension as the eliminations start to pile up. This one was more like a traditional tag team match with lots of guys in it. Most of the wrestling was solid but unspectacular. Brady Roberts and Gama Singh Jr recycled a spot from their match at Evolution in February which featured Singh responding to Brady Roberts’ gyrating with a smack upside the head. It was funnier the first time. Singh’s face team controlled much of the bout, including a spot where Chucky Blaze wiped out the entire heel team with a corkscrew plancha from the top rope to the floor after the heels had been chased out of the ring. Shortly after that, Dirty Duke Durango caught a front kick from Blaze, then used Blaze’s leg to low blow himself, causing Blaze to be disqualified. While reading that sentence makes it sound stupid, it came off live as Durango being incredibly clever. Tex Gaines, incensed by the referee’s call, barged into the ring and clobbered everybody within arms’ reach, including shoving the referee when he tried to pull him off of somebody. Tex is disqualified. After the heels control things a little bit more, Brady Roberts grabbed the life preserver he came out with (he has a beach bully gimmick) and used it as a weapon for basically no reason and was promptly disqualified. Shortly afterwards, everyone got into a giant brawl which left only Jason Anderson Gama Singh Jr and Alex Plexis in the ring. Anderson and Singh hit Plexis with a Hart Attack for the win just past the 10 minute mark.

Kurt Sorochan and Don “Sergeant Hazard” Ferguson come out and thank the fans for their support in a short promo segment.

While Scotty Mac, the NWA Canadian Heavyweight Champion up until the night before this show, was in the role of challenger, the real opponent for Chris Steele in this one was Drew Dalby. Dalby used to be an announcer and manager in PWA prior to moving out to BC. Relevant information: he used to be Chris Steele’s manager, at a point when Chris Steele didn’t do a whole lot of winning. Now Steele is the Heavyweight Champ, and Dalby is using Scotty Mac to get his revenge.

Drew Dalby verbally thrashes Chris Steele before being punched in the mug.

The match began with Drew Dalby cutting a promo on Chris Steele. I figured they would have Steele constantly go after Dalby but not be able to get to him until the end of the match, but they went the other direction and Steele decked Dalby immediately. Scotty Mac’s involvement wasn’t so much as Steele’s opponent but as the guy who was preventing him from spending the whole time stomping the shit out of Drew Dalby, a job which he didn’t do especially well, since Steele attacked Dalby on several occasions throughout the match. Dalby gave as good as he got, though, cheap-shotting Steele at every opportunity while Scotty Mac distracted the official. As Chris Steele started to get some momentum going late in the match the referee got caught in the corner and was squashed between Scotty Mac and the buckle when Steele hit Scotty with an avalanche. Drew Dalby immediately sucker punched Steele, then entered the ring to hold him so Scotty Mac could nail him with a super kick. Steele ducked out of the way and Dalby got his head taken off by Scotty’s chin music. While Scotty was distraught over putting his boot through his manager’s face, Steele got the distance he needed to hit a spear. The referee woke up, counted three, and Chris Steele retained the PWA Heavyweight Championship.

Bully Ray & Dylan Knight vs. D’Von & Lance Storm

I haven’t been watching TNA enough to be familiar with the Bully Ray/D’Von angle, but this match showed me just how good of a heel Bully Ray really is. The level of heat he was getting without even getting on the mic was reminiscent of the kind of heat the Dudley Boyz used to get as heels in ECW. In the forty feet or so between the curtain and the timekeeper’s table Ray managed to enrage the crowd to the point where a guy had to be physically restrained from taking a swing at him. Dylan Knight used his usual trick, shouting “Aussie Aussie Aussie!” to which the crowd responded “sucks sucks sucks” as they do. Lance Storm and D’Von got big pops.

Bully Ray begs off. Because that works ever so well.

D’Von and Ray started the match, with Ray teasing engagement a few times before tagging out to Knight with a sneer on his face and an avalanche of boos ringing in his ears. Knight didn’t get much done against his far more experienced opponents, who threw him around at will. This portion of the match was fairly basic, with lots of chain wrestling highlighted by a variety of flashy arm drags executed by Storm. Ray’s attempts to coach Knight from the corner were loud enough to be audible from the bleachers, and were actually pretty funny. After a while Ray gave up trying to give Knight tips and just admonished him by yelling “Oh come on, you’re makin’ me look bad!” Eventually Knight tagged in Ray, who then turned to face his own corner and explain to Knight to watch him and learn. By the time Ray turned around, Storm had tagged in D’Von and Ray begged off immediately. After some brief offence from D’Von, Ray bailed out and stormed around the gym, flipping a merchandise table and kicking a garbage can halfway up the wall.

Whaaaaaassup!

Upon returning to the ring, Ray and Knight managed to get back into things and isolate Storm for several minutes. Eventually Storm managed to tag D’Von back in, who laid into both heels. Storm came back in to hold Bully Ray in position for D’Von to hit the Whassup, which is a move I completely forgot about until seeing the set-up for it. Lance Storm shoves D’Von and the crowd fills in the blanks, yelling “D’Von, get the tables!” The crowd reaction was good enough that they repeated the sequence, then D’Von went and got a table. This wasn’t a piece-of-crap chipboard table, though. There were really visible metal braces on the underside of the table, which makes perfect sense for the intended purpose of the table. For the “slamming a 250 pound man through it” purpose, though, the metal braces weren’t great. As Bully Ray was out on the floor following the Whassup, D’Von and Storm hit 3D on Dylan Knight through the table, resulting in the not-overly-surprising but satisfying conclusion to the bout just past the 20 minute mark. The table didn’t really break like a normal table, instead cracking and folding in half but remaining in one piece. Knight and Ray proceeded to slink out of the arena while D’Von and Lance Storm cut promos, then stuck around to sign autographs and take pictures with fans.

Spot of the Night: The finish to the Cruiserweight Championship match, featuring two missed shooting star presses and a standing top rope hurricanrana.

Match of the Night: Bully Ray & Dylan Knight vs. D’Von & Lance Storm. While there weren’t any mind-blowing moves or spots, the entire match was performed at a consistently high level and the crowd was in a frenzy the entire time.

Last night was the 2011 Royal Rumble, and along with it the Royal Rumble drinking game. The game is designed to get you pretty smashed in a typical 30 man rumble if you play at the highest level of hardcore rules; adding an extra ten guys has a pretty predictable outcome in terms of the game’s results.

If you want a recap of the Rumble itself, check out Justin Houston’s delightfully snarky review at ProWrestlingPonderings.com, this article is mostly going to be about the experience of watching it and playing the drinking game.

First off, as per the rules of the drinking game, we all had to select two of the participants in the Royal Rumble whose successes and failures in the Rumble match would lead to either us or everyone else drinking more. Naturally, you want to pick guys who you expect to do well, since his success leads to more drinking for your friends and less for you. There are some pretty obvious picks each year (John Cena is pretty much always going to toss some guys, most of the big guys put a few people out before they get dumped, and the handful of guys that could reasonably win it are good picks), but once you get past those it’s really a matter of guessing who might have a breakout performance and get a bunch of eliminations, or at least last for a while. We rolled dice to determine picking order, and I did poorly. My first pick was Sheamus, since a lot of the big names had been taken already (although I misread the sheet, thinking CM Punk was taken already when he wasn’t). My second pick was tougher, since the majority of the remaining selections were obviously just filler. I settled on Wade Barrett as a guy who could feasibly have some success, or at least last for a little while. He turned out to be a pretty good choice.

The Royal Rumble match started off with my friend Dan having to chug his first, full drink as CM Punk entered in the number one spot. That’s a rough way to start. When Ezekiel Jackson walked out, Dan thought he was number two, groaned, and chugged his second drink before realizing that the whole stupid brawl at the beginning of the match (which really didn’t play any significant part in the rest of the Rumble) wasn’t actually part of the match and that Daniel Bryan was the real number 2. Although the first quarter of the Rumble, with Bryan and Punk going at it, was the best part.

I know I said I wasn’t going to recap the matches, but I can’t resist mentioning a few things. Dolph Ziggler vs. Edge as the opener was really good. I enjoyed it a lot, despite the screwy booking. Seriously, Kelly Kelly runs in for no reason? What the hell? Miz vs. Orton was pretty lacklustre. Miz is acceptable in the ring, but not spectacular, so pairing him with Randy Rest Hold and expecting something not-terrible to happen was asking way too much. Also, the screwy finish with Nexus and Punk running in for no reason. The Divas title match, with Eve inserted for no reason (are you sensing a pattern here?) was actually pretty good, as far as the Divas go. Nattie Neidhart is the only one who actually looked like she knew what she was doing, but it was a lot better than most Divas matches get. The Rumble started off ON FIRE, then ebbed and flowed until the last few minutes, where things got screwy again. The Cena/Miz thing was dumb, and could have easily been accomplished in any number of other, more elegant ways. The Alberto Del Rio/Santino thing was kind of funny, but unnecessary.

Fun Quotes:

On Kelly Kelly interfering in the World Heavyweight Title match:
1: Hey, it’s Kelly Kelly beating up Vickie Guerrero for no reason!
2: Wow, that’s a lot of ass-crack right there. They must have brought her out just to get that ass-crack on TV.
1: Well she’s not all that hot from the front, so really it’s all she has going for her.
2: Is that why the camera’s been behind her the whole time.
1: Probably.

On Daniel Bryan:
1: Hey who’s this guy? He looks Canadian. Is he Canadian?
2: No, he’s from Washington… WHY DO I KNOW THAT!?
(there were a bunch of other instances that ended with “… WHY DO I KNOW THAT” but I can’t remember what led to them.)

On Wrestlers’ Trunks
1: Nobody wears pants anymore, everyone’s in shiny black trunks.
2: So all it takes to be an individual is to wear pants?
1: Uh huh.
3: What!? I hate pants!

On The Divas:
1: I think I saw that one in a porno once.
2: Well all the woman wrestlers are former porn stars and models now, so it’s possible.
(This led into a conversational path that resulted in pantomiming a midget trying and failing to reach around a full-sized woman’s hips to do her doggy style)

On Husky Harris standing a little too close while protecting CM Punk:
1: I don’t think that faceful of henchman ass is helping him.
2: Yeah, he’s waaay too close there.
3: That must be tough to explain when he gets home from work. “What’d you do at work today, honey?” “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
1: Yeah, I don’t think there’s a way to gloss over having your henchman’s asshole in your face.

We left off with the Nexus continuing to stagger along after SummerSlam. Our resident superhero, John Cena, continued to feud with Wade Barrett and the Nexus, even though his team’s victory at SummerSlam really killed the storyline’s momentum. Injuries shuffled up Nexus’ lineup, with Skip “my name should really have been attached to Alex Riley’s character” Sheffield and Michael Tarver sustaining injuries and Darren Young dropping off the face of the earth to be replaced by Michael McGuillicutty and Husky Harris, who caused John Cena to become a Nexus member by attacking him prior to their induction into the group. Cena being forced into the group he had been battling for months had the potential to revitalize the Nexus and really shake up John Cena’s stagnant character. Unfortunately, Cena got to deliver some of the worst-written promos I’ve ever had the displeasure of hearing as he suffered under Wade Barrett’s snarky British yoke. Eventually the whole thing came to a head as Wade Barrett, despite never having used Cena to do anything productive, fired Cena for not awarding him the WWE Title. Cena proceeded to engage in the shortest firing of all time, as he NEVER LEFT TV. Seriously, WWE, what the fuck? Do you really believe that if John Cena is not on TV that nobody will tune in? Needless to say, Cena was re-hired and Wade Barrett was buried. Literally. Under some chairs.

After a wonderful feud with Daniel Bryan that produced some very exciting matches, The Miz cashed in his Money in the Bank and won the WWE Title from Randy Orton. Who is still ridiculously over despite not having the title (or mic skills, or any noticeable wrestling talent), so clearly taking it from Sheamus to put it on him was brilliant. Anyway, The Miz winning the WWE has been mostly positive, except for Michael Cole, who does his best to try and ruin Mike Mizanin’s career by attaching himself to the champ.

Speaking of Michael Cole, a review of 2010 can’t go without mentioning the buffoonish little troll’s new character direction, which appears to be based on WWE attempting to do as much damage to their own product with one character as is possible. The WWE has shirked the face/heel announcer dichotomy for quite a while now, which makes it even more off-putting and distracting now that Cole flies off on seemingly random heel tangents that eschew all of the hallmarks of a good heel announcer in favour of verbally shitting on the wrestlers. Hopefully Jerry Lawler murders him with a series of piledrivers in the near future.

Over on Smackdown, Dolph Ziggler, with help from Vickie Guerrero, made the Intercontinental Title relevant again. Having good matches on a weekly basis was, of course, overshadowed on the show by a truly horrendous storyline involving Edge challenging for Kane’s World Heavyweight Championship. Oh, and the Undertaker was buried alive, thus leading me to believe that blood and necktie choking is not okay but death by dirt-based suffocation is PG. I think I’ll continue to forget that the Edge/Kane storyline ever happened, because it’s better for my mental health. Now Edge is the World Heavyweight Champion and a babyface, despite torturing Paul Bearer for several weeks.

The real big deal on Smackdown, though, was Alberto Del Rio. After a series of kind of lame vignettes, he stormed onto the scene and was the hottest heel on the roster within a matter of weeks. I don’t think Mysterio beating him clean on Smackdown was a wise move, since people would have paid to see it on pay-per-view, but that’s WWE’s problem, not mine.

In 2010 the WWE retained a lot of the problems it had when I stopped watching (around 2004/5), primarily at the top of the card. While the main event scene got some shake-ups this year with Sheamus, The Miz, and Alberto Del Rio stepping up full-time, the usual suspects are still around and I have a hard time believing Randy Orton or John Cena won’t have the WWE Title around their wasit by Wrestlemania. The Tag Team titles have been rendered meaningless as any team that shows potential is broken up before they can accomplish much. The midcard produced some fantastic matches while the guys holding the belts are frequently all talk and no work.

I left off the last post with the fallout from Wrestlemania 26, so that’s where I’m going to pick up here.

I mentioned last time that the post-Wrestlemania shakeup of the main event scene was something I was really excited about. I didn’t mention that, initially, I was a bit concerned about putting the World Heavyweight Championship on Jack Swagger. I loved the feud he had with Christian over the ECW Championship, but that title didn’t have a whole lot of value attached to it. While Swagger’s reign turned out to be pretty disappointing due to some pretty lacklustre booking, it proved that the All American American could carry the gold. Swagger’s long, hilarious speeches about his lifetime of achievements really sold me on him. Unfortunately, his reign was overshadowed by the head-shaker that was the “Kane, P.I.” storyline. Before finally dropping the belt to Rey Mysterio for basically no reason, Swagger was forced to carry the Big Show through a feud which reminded me that, improved work rate or no, the Big Show can’t pull his substantial weight at the top of the card. Swagger pretty much disappeared from the main event scene after losing the title, much to my disappointment.

Speaking of Smackdown Superstars who disappeared after a title run, what about Drew McIntyre? During his run with the Intercontinental Championship he was running pretty hot as a heel. The way they played his undefeated streak didn’t work quite as well as it could have, but it didn’t kill his heat. Seriously, though, having your undefeated Intercontinental Champion lose to Kane in a non-title Money in the Bank qualifier with a kick to the face is a terrible idea, even if it’s immediately expunged. Since his title loss, he might as well have a bucket of ice water thrown on his heat. He had a pointless run with Cody Rhodes as a tag team (more on that another time, perhaps), and is now involved in some truly painful segments with Kelly Kelly.

On the RAW side, Sheamus toppled John Cena (literally) to win the WWE Championship before being turned into a total pussy by the creative team. The thing with championships is that nobody is going to pay to see a champion that seems like a fluke. The finish of Sheamus’ bout with Cena made his win look like an accident, which is fine as long as some time is spent building the Irishman back up. WWE took it in a different direction and had him cheat to win against EVERYBODY, even guys who the WWE Champion should be able to demolish. Sheamus lost the title, then won it back by taking advantage of Nexus interference at Fatal Four Way, and continued where he left off: looking like a particularly cowardly jar of margarine. What did Sheamus’ neutering accomplish? Putting over John Cena and Randy Orton, the only two guys on the roster who didn’t need it AT ALL. Good thinking, writers.

The Nexus were the big deal on RAW for much of the year. Their initial appearance, where they stormed onto the scene and destroyed everything in their path, was an instant classic WWE moment. Pretty much everything after that went downhill. In a series of matches on RAW designed to show that the Nexus could compete individually, Darren Young was pointlessly exiled from the group (and WWE TV entirely) because John Cena is apparently not allowed to lose ever, for any reason. Things stayed fairly hot until SummerSlam, when the Nexus was effectively shut down by Team WWE because, once again, John Cena is not allowed to lose for any reason, even if it would make the storyline better. Daniel Bryan’s return to battle his former comrades was a delightful twist, but if the WWE had really wanted Nexus to remain a legitimate threat to RAW, they needed to win at SummerSlam. There were plenty of ways for Cena to lose to Nexus and not look bad. For example: all of them. No matter how the thing ended, Cena would still be over because he’s beyond wins and losses mattering. He’s the face of the WWE. The Nexus continued to trundle along, shuffled their line-up a bit, and got John Cena as a member, which was a good idea in theory but really stupid in practice. More on that next time, though.

I started watching WWE again in 2010, and need stuff to write about so this place isn’t barren until January.

Late in 2009 I started watching the WWE-branded ECW out of curiosity. I hadn’t watched wrestling regularly since 2004-ish, and wasn’t particularly interested in getting back into it, but ECW had a very significant advantage over other wrestling programs: it was the only thing on in its time slot. I could probably write an entire post about that version of ECW, but that can wait for another time. Why ECW is important to this article is that it’s how I found out that Bret “The Hitman” Hart was going to be returning to WWE for the first time since 1997. Now THAT I had to see.

Watching RAW for the first time in six years had a lot of the same excitement as the first time I watched wrestling back in 1993. The sense of discovery as I parsed out who everyone was and what exactly was going on, the thrill of seeing wrestlers I recognized, the sense of amazement when I saw a new move. It was all there.

The Bret Hart/Vince McMahon storyline really got me back into wrestling, which is odd because I knew the resulting match would suck. But it did what a good story should: it got me invested in the characters and seeing the heel get his comeuppance.

Aside from the Bret/Vince story, the WWE actually wasn’t that much different than it was six years ago. The main event level talent was actually almost identical; Triple H, Shawn Michaels, John Cena, Batista, Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, and The Undertaker were all still kicking around. The first quarter of the year featured John Cena and Batista in the kind of feud that the WWE loves and I hate: the kind where lots and lots and lots of talking leads to a series of matches which are mediocre at best, godawful at worst. I get John Cena’s popularity, because he’s basically a modern Hulk Hogan (okay, technically Hogan is the modern Hogan, since he still refuses to retire) and has more charisma than you can shake a stick it. Why you would want to shake a stick at charisma, I’m not sure. Why anyone would think that having him engage Batista, who had mic skill roughly equivalent to the average cactus, in incredibly long verbal exchanges that led to awkward, boring matches was a good idea, I don’t know.

The 2010 Royal Rumble was the first WWE PPV I’ve seen since the 2002 Royal Rumble (I don’t count 2005’s ECW One Night Stand as a WWE PPV). You can read more about my Royal Rumble experiences, most of which involved a drinking game that seemed like a really good idea at the time here.

The mid card really stood out to me, mostly because it’s where the new faces were found. Jack Swagger’s run of matches with Christian in ECW really solidified him in my view as a guy I wanted to see a lot more of. Young guys like Kofi Kingston and Dolph Ziggler impressed me as well, although not as much as they would later on. Drew McIntyre spent the first half or so of the year on fire with the Intercontinental Title, although that cooled down significantly later on. The WWE tends to neglect it’s midcard, though, so I suppose it’s not much of a surprise that guys like Swagger and McIntyre didn’t break out to the extent that they could have.

The build-up to Wrestlemania made me seriously consider buying the PPV… until I saw how much it cost, at which point I decided that the $25 DVD would suffice (PPV’s are $50 Canadian, or $55 for HD). It was worth it for Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker alone, the other good stuff was really just icing on the cake.

I was excited when the first third of the year ended, because all of a sudden the main event scene wasn’t so familiar. Triple H and the Undertaker took time off and the Undertaker got hurt, which shook things up enough for Jack Swagger to capture the World Heavyweight Championship (not that WWE creative did anything with it, but I thought he did a lot with what little he was given) and Sheamus to really catch fire.